Perez and Thomas

Tim Perez's "Remember to Breathe" and Dylan Thomas' "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night" both deal with someone facing and dealing with the prospect of a loved one dying. In both, the speaker feels sorry for him or herself, but it is the speaker's attitude toward the loved one's death that shows the contrast between these poems. The contrast lies in whether or not death should be fought or accepted.

Thomas' poem focuses on the fight that the speaker wants to occur at the end of a life.

The poem is very personal for Thomas as he watched his father suffer and die from cancer while Thomas was a teenager. Although in some sense the poem acknowledges that death is inevitable for everyone as evidenced in the line, "Though wise men at their end know dark is right" (Thomas line 4), the speaker still begs the dying person to "Rage, rage against the dying of the light" (Thomas lines 3, 9, 15, 19).

Where Thomas' poem directs anger at the fate of all humans, Perez's poem is more personally focused on the memory of the dying person. Perez's poem speaks of the final memories of the dying person as she is in her hospital bed. "I remember your hands laying / at the side of your steel / bed, gnarled and twisted / like old oak trees" (Perez lines 8-11). These memories are painful for the speaker as is the memory of her funeral when she looked "stuffed / and painted like a swap meet / China doll" (Perez lines 15-17). It is at the end of this poem that the speaker reconciles with death.

That is the key differences between the poems. Thomas wants the dying person to "rage" against death to the end. He would never want anyone to face the dying of the light without a mighty battle although he recognizes the power of death. Perez's speaker feels one more connection to the dead woman and accepts that she is in a better place. "And the breeze, kissing my face / pulling rose petals at my feet / and I knew you were there- / dancing / in its / breath" (Perez lines 29-34). Here, the dead and the living accept death and its peacefulness. Thomas is never willing to accept that and continues to fight against the darkness.